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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 17, 2024

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feel like a lot of people really needed that article by Eric Turkheimer on why race science is objectionable.

This article sucks. As a congenital leftist who doesn't like racism per se but has been convinced as to the validity of HBD, I was expecting something worth reading rather than "These beliefs are offensive because... you know, they just are, there's no point examining this further." This article isn't an attempt at explaining why race science is objectionable, it just assumes that it is and then proceeds from there. Yes, I know that answering these questions might make some people feel bad. That's not actually a reason to continually lie about it and engage in efforts at restorative justice that are doomed to fail because they're based on motivated thinking rather than a look at the evidence. If my car is refusing to start, should I simply ignore the fuel gauge showing empty because I don't want to believe that I'm out of gas and spend tons of money taking my car to mechanics to figure out the problem?

If the question of African IQ is a matter of empirical science, exactly what piece of evidence are we waiting for? What would finally convince the racialists that they are wrong?

There's actually a lot of evidence that could settle this! The problem isn't that no scientific evidence proving Tabula Rasa is accepted, but that every single time you actually do the experiment you end up with evidence proving the opposite or a paper that doesn't replicate. What even is the point of raising this as a hypothetical when in other places in the article he flat out admits that his own side should ignore evidence in favour of ethical concerns? He's also destroyed his own ability to prevent that evidence - why exactly should I trust an article written by someone who says that on this particular topic it is a moral imperative to lie if the facts don't match up to his ideology?

Watson is a legitimately respected and famous person on the basis of his great scientific accomplishments and the awards they have won for him, but those accomplishments don’t have very much to do with racial differences in intelligence, except that both domains involve the concept of “genes” in a very general way. It is safe to say that he does not know anything more about the subject than anyone writing here.

No, it isn't fucking safe to say that! Watson would absolutely know more about genetics and evolution than Eric Turkheimer, or me, or most of the people on the motte. Hell, I will flat out say that I know more about genetics than Turkheimer despite his years of study, because in this article he doesn't even seem to know how genes work (see his section on how the legacy of slavery is why African americans do worse on IQ tests). Of course, I think there's a decent chance that he is aware and is simply lying about it - after all, the position he takes is that this is a matter of morality rather than evidence, so it doesn't matter what the facts say.